This invention relates to a system for reproducing AV information, and more particularly to a reproducing system having an external access function that acquires related information connected with the reproduced stream information from resources on a computer network.
With the recent development of large-capacity DVDs (digital video disks), various reproducing systems for making use of multimedia information, including digital video information (including still pictures) and digital audio information, have been proposed. Hereinafter, digital video information (including still pictures) and digital audio information are generally called AV information.
For example, the reproducing system is an apparatus that has a DVD drive and corresponds a video player or a video deck with the function of reproducing the AV information recorded on a DVD set in the DVD drive and displaying the reproduced information on a television set or the display (or screen) of a personal computer.
The AV information encoded by a moving-picture coding scheme known as the MPEG (moving picture coding experts group) 2 is generally multiplexed with audio information and the multiplexed information is recorded on a DVD. From the DVD, the reproducing system reproduces stream information in specific coding streams (or consecutive bit data strings) corresponding to the specified title (for example, movie), thereby reproducing the AV information on the screen consecutively.
With the recent development of computers and multimedia technology, various multimedia-compatible computer systems have been developed. This type of computer system is provided with the function of reproducing moving pictures and audio data as well as text data and graphics data.
As multimedia computers have been used widely, DVDs have lately attracted attention as a new storage medium to replace the CD-ROM. One side of a single DVD-ROM medium can store about 4.7 Gbyte of data, about seven times the present CD-ROM. Therefore, about 9.4 Gbyte of data can be stored on both sides of the DVD-ROM medium. Use of the DVD-ROM medium enables moving pictures, including movies containing a large volume of video information, to be reproduced with a high quality.
Recently, there has been a great demand for highly sophisticated and profitable information handling, by imparting the interactiveness or responsiveness to digital data of, for example, moving pictures, used in the above-described reproduction system or computer system.